VCU Libraries celebrates 2 million-volume milestone.
The 2 million volumes in the collection of the VCU Libraries could form 816 stacks as high as Brandt Hall on the Monroe Park Campus. However, more important than the sheer size of the collection is the formidable depth and diversity of resources that it offers the Virginia Commonwealth University community.
Michael Rao, Ph.D., president of VCU, said the university’s libraries are central to “everything we do here,” noting the particular importance of a robust library to a research university. A comprehensive academic library system serves students and faculty from all disciplines, he said, and allows them access to the otherwise inaccessible.
“It brings the world together in one place,” Rao said.
The VCU Libraries celebrated reaching the 2 million-volume milestone in an Oct. 2 ceremony at James Branch Cabell Library on the Monroe Park Campus. The event was simulcast at the Tompkins-McCaw Library for the Health Sciences on the MCV Campus. Speakers included President Rao; Stephen Gottfredson, Ph.D., VCU provost and vice president of academic affairs; and John Ulmschneider, university librarian. Gordon McDougall, VCU’s assistant vice president for alumni relations, presented a resolution from the VCU Alumni Association and the MCV Alumni Association of VCU in honor of the occasion.
Ulmschneider said VCU celebrated the acquisition of its 1 millionth volume in 1993 after nearly 100 years of growth, reaching back to the founding of the medical library on the university’s MCV Campus. He said the mere 16 years it took to double the size of the collection demonstrates the rapid development that both VCU and the VCU Libraries have undergone. That growth has kept the libraries busy. In 2008, in fact, VCU’s libraries received more than 2 million visitors for the first time.
The ceremony unveiled three distinctive additions to the VCU Libraries collections, which include books, journals, media and electronic resources.
The 1,999,999th volume introduced to the collection was the Edward Peeples Collection of digitized photographs and documents exploring the history of segregation in Prince Edward County in the 1950s and 1960s. Edward Peeples, Ph.D., VCU professor emeritus of preventive medicine and community health, photographed more than 100 images of schools in the county and environs in 1962 and 1963.
The 2 millionth addition to the VCU collections was Marvel Comics’ “Amazing Spider-Man, #583,” featuring U.S. President Barack Obama. The selection of the landmark comic, which was released in recognition of Inauguration Day 2009, highlights the diverse offerings of the VCU Libraries and nods to VCU’s Comic Arts Collection, one of the largest of its kind in North America with more than 125,000 items.
And the 2,000,001th addition was the Rittenhouse R2 Digital Library, a digital book collection that includes hundreds of full-length books from multiple publishers related to all aspects of the health sciences. The R2 Digital Library, which joins VCU’s expanding collection of more than 259,000 electronic book titles, represents a look to the future — and the next million volumes — as VCU’s libraries turn increasingly digital.
From left: Stephen Gottfredson, Ph.D., VCU provost and vice president of academic affairs; VCU President Michael Rao, Ph.D.; Jodi Koste, archivist, VCU Libraries; and John Ulmschneider, university librarian.
